Dental Indications of Polynesian Affinity for Prehistoric Rotuma Islanders, South Pacific

Christy G Turner Ii

doi:10.26575/daj.v18i2.134

Abstract

Human skeletal reburial, reasonable from a religious and personal point of view, nevertheless diminishes the physical record of human evolution. The present study preserves some information for a small but rare Pacific Basin skeletal assemblage. Prehistoric human tooth-bearing cranial and jaw fragments and loose teeth of probably 19 individuals excavated on Rotuma Island were examined for crown and root morphology. The purpose of the examination was to assess whether these individuals were morphologically more like Melanesians or Polynesians. Rotuma is in the Polynesian culture area north of the Fiji group, which exhibits archaeological and ethnographic evidence of colonists from both Oceanic populations. Polynesians belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family, so if the Rotuma teeth are similar to Polynesians they should also be more similar to Southeast Asian teeth than to those of linguistically different Melanesians or Australians. Indeed, this seems to be the case, although the small Rotuma sample size reduces confidence somewhat in this finding of Rotuma similarity with Polynesians and Southeast Asians.

Highlights

Human skeletal reburial, reasonable from a religious and personal point of view, diminishes the physical record of human evolution
Several nearly significant frequency differences possibly would have been significant had the Rotuma series been larger, and these differences likely would have enhanced the differences between Rotuma and the Australmelanesian and American dental series
Rotuma alone classifies as Polynesian, but when combined with nearby Fiji its affiliation becomes ambiguous. Both univariate and multivariate statistical comparisons of the small Rotuma dental sample indicate a closer relationship with Polynesians than with Melanesians or American Indians

Summary

Introduction

Reasonable from a religious and personal point of view, diminishes the physical record of human evolution. Polynesians belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family, so if the Rotuma teeth are similar to Polynesians they should be more similar to Southeast Asian teeth than to those of linguistically different Melanesians or Australians. This seems to be the case, the small Rotuma sample size reduces confidence somewhat in this finding of Rotuma similarity with Polynesians and Southeast Asians. There were no cultural remains associated with the human teeth and bones. This small but geographically rare assemblage has since been reburied after study. The assay (SFU-118) produced an uncorrected date of 1,000 BP + 100 radiocarbon years (Shutler, 1998)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion